A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Problem with No Name Systems...and the Weather Headed Towards Florida

Track of No Name System:

The problem with these no name systems that don't fit neatly into a box is that despite all the orange and red circles on the NHC website without the advertisement on the News to stay tuned for the newly formed "Tropical Depression" people just don't take them seriously.

I mean it's not rocket science. Like Pavlov's dog we have all been trained to sit up and go "what?" when there is a system designated with a name or even a number. The words "Tropical Depression" catch the public's attention. Rain in the Caribbean moving towards South Florida can easily be thought of as "hype" and something to just boost the ratings for the local weather and news show.

To think that people pay attention to what the NWS puts out is folly and totally ridiculous. OCD types follow the weather radio, the news, their weather APP and call their friends. The average Joe is busy driving to work, dealing with a petty boss and figuring out how he is going to pay his mortgage this month not worrying on "a very rainy mess headed this way" or the ever popular "regardless of whether it gets a name we are in for bad weather" sort of soundbites.

I'm not saying we know for sure that these people would not have been out there IF the last system that walloped Florida had a name, but there is a good chance that they might not have gone out, gotten lost at sea and lost their grandma had the NHC simply designated last week's storm a named quantity. "Lost" as in she died and it's a miracle that the 4 year old child survived the ordeal by bobbing in an ice cooler in "choppy seas" last week.

I mean again, let's get real. They have named small, weak looking systems out in the middle of nowhere about to die this year and yet they didn't give last week's storm any designation despite the extreme weather it caused of the Tropical Storm kind up and down the coast.

I think that's wrong. Really wrong.

A Tropical Storm with a name and with wind speeds of 40 and 45 mph gets a lot more media coverage than "bad weather with high surf and sustained winds of 50mph" ...that is just the way we have been trained to pay attention to news and weather events.

If it quacks like a duck, call it a duck. Err on the side of protecting the public and let the NHC cover it not the ugly duckling NWS. Yes, they do a bang up job, but no one pays attention and not everyone watches TWC and says "hmmmnnn, they sent Cantore to Daytona" as most of the people not watching TWC are just going about their day not paying attention without a name.

My rant for the day.

The ball is in their court, let's see what they do with it or if it gets a name. Let's see if people in Florida pay as much attention as people up the coast who are waiting for it to slam the NE... I find it odd that friends in Rhode Island are paying more attention than tourists in Florida.

1 Comments:

Been reading your blog for two years and you are dead right about these no name systems. Being a PE teacher in Miami, I always track the weather to plan for my classes and being a parent, I keep an eye on it to be prepared to protect my family. Public safety should trump scientific precison in naming these systems. A well prepared chicken little with various ant friends will always outlive all of the grasshoppers, Jimmy Crickets, and rocket scientists.